Apple's 802.11n software now available

Apple on Tuesday released the software needed to unlock the fast Wi-Fi chips inside almost every one of its new Macs.

At Macworld earlier this month, CEO Steve Jobs revealed that certain Macs were shipped with a fast 802.11n chip inside, but the chip was disabled until the standard was more complete. The company subsequently said it would charge $1.99 to unlock that capability, or Mac users could buy a new 802.11n Airport Extreme Base Station with the needed software.

Both products are now available, because the industry is more comfortable with the current draft of the standard, said David Moody, vice president of worldwide Mac product marketing. The software enabler can be purchased from the Apple Store, and the $179 base station is also available online. It should show up in Apple stores over the next few days, the company said.

Based on Apple's tests, the 802.11n standard should allow connection speeds five times faster than 802.11g networks with twice the range, said Jai Chulani, senior product manager at Apple. The company tested the performance of its notebooks connected to its Airport Extreme base station to come up with those numbers, so results may vary in mixed environments. But as long as you have 802.11n on both sides of the connection, any vendor's products will deliver better results than 802.11g networks because of the MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) antenna technology used by the standard.

Apple's 802.11n upgrade fee provoked a controversy after the company claimed it was required by accounting rules to charge users for the software enabler. Accounting experts later clarified that Apple was forced to surprise users with the charge because it booked all the revenue upfront from sales of the Macs with the 802.11n chips, and because it didn't tell users at the time of purchase that they would need to spend $1.99 to unlock that chip.

The company is getting the software out a little earlier than promised, however. Jobs said at Macworld that the software would ship in February. All Mac notebooks with Intel's Core 2 Duo chip have the 802.11n chip. Mac Pro desktops with the Airport Extreme option and all the iMac models--except for the entry-level iMac with a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo chip--also come with the faster Wi-Fi chip. The enabling software can be used on more than one Mac inside a home network, Moody said.

Other companies have released notebooks with 802.11n chips, such as Lenovo, Dell and Gateway, but Apple has the technology inside all of its notebooks available now, a company representative said.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is expected to start certifying products based on the 802.11n draft standard relatively soon. A final version of the standard is expected to become available later this year, and current products will likely--but not definitely--only require a software update to comply with the final standard, Chulani said.

Apple is the top dog again and everyone wants a piece of them. They had to sell this software or it would allow certain unethical people to sue because of some weird law. This is fact not conjecture btw.

Trolling doesn't give the Macintosh supporters a good name. I would suggest that you refrain from making these postings which only serve to embarass Macintosh supporters. more by having you in their ranks.

Trolling doesn't give the Macintosh supporters a good name. I would suggest that you refrain from making these postings which only serve to embarass Macintosh supporters. more by having you in their ranks.

but I thought that GAP states that once a product or service is sold that was it for collecting money? And I thought it states that in instances like this, where not all the delivered, the company is suppose to take the money up front, but not record the revenue until it is finalized? Really, it still sounds like Apple is trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of their customers for something that they already bought.

So...they couldn't just sneak in the 2 buck charge in up front and then say, "Hey, guys! Download this update and your 802.11g card automagically becomes an 802.11[b]n[/b] card!!!" and reap amazing amounts of good will, yet preserve whatever profits/accounting standards/bull$#!+ that they're now talking up to justify this piddly little in-your-face charge? Apparently, "the rest of us" in that "A computer for the rest of us" line are sheep, and Jobs is the randy shepherd. Step right up, fanboys, and just say "baaaa" if it hurts! ;)

802.11n has been stuck in "review" for quite some time. Several networking companies have been offering 11n products with the promise that their firmware is upgradable if the standard changes from spec.

In walks apple doing the same thing.

Only difference is how Apple wants to handle the accounting. Under SOX they either hold back money for the value of the "upgrade" or they have to charge for it.

With the SEC already investigating Apple, do you think that they are going to stray?

And those that have apples and want to go from .g to .n for less than 2 bucks are going to cry?

The AirPort Extreme 802.11n Enabler does not work with machines using Intel Core Duo processors. It only works with Core 2 Duo processors as I found out after purchasing and downloading the software enabler for my MacBook Pro.

So now that Apple has announced 802.11n compatibility in most of its Macs, if I buy a new Mac tomorrow will it come with the 802.11n software enabled? By their logic, it should, right? They have to charge for previously purchased 802.11n machines because it wasn't announced that the chip was there and future-compatible when they were sold in the first place, so now that it's announced and compatible it should be included on new Macs. Anybody know?

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